SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson accused the U.S. government Friday of trying to intimidate his wife and other protesters on Vieques with excessive jail terms, fines and cruel treatment.

Jackson, with his daughter and two sons, met with Jacqueline Jackson for more than an hour in a federal jail. He said she was ''in a very good mood'' but would likely be returned to solitude in a dank, dingy cell because she planned to refuse to allow guards to search her.

''Because she refused cavity body searches of her private parts, she is now in a hole in solitary confinement,'' Jackson said earlier, after arriving in San Juan. ''That is cruel and unnecessary punishment.''

Meanwhile, the Navy continued to bomb its firing range on Vieques on Friday. An A-4 Skyhawk made about 30 runs over the range and dropped 12 dummy 25-pound bombs, Navy officials said.

Navy and police officials have reported detaining at least 55 trespassing protesters -- including Jacqueline Jackson -- since the latest exercises on the Puerto Rican island began Monday.

She was jailed because she refused to pay $3,000 bail. Her husband said the demand for bail, combined with ill-treatment and lengthy jail sentences, were designed to scare people into halting the protests.

''They should not be treated harshly or as common criminals in order to deter free speech,'' Jackson said.

A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, Traci Billingsley, said she was not allowed to address individual cases but said all inmates have to strip their clothes off for a ''visual'' search after they receive visitors. ''There is no contact,'' she said. The bureau does not have a form of incarceration called solitary confinement, she said, but inmates who refuse the search ''may be placed in the special housing unit and face possible disciplinary action.''

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Saturday, June 23, 2001.